Iron Man #166
One of Those Days…
It’s 9 am in the morning at Stark International and the Melter has come looking for Tony Stark. Unphased by the arrival of one of Iron Man’s oldest foes, Tony’s secretary — Bambi Arbogast — tells the villain the same thing she told him the day before: Her boss is out of town and she doesn’t know when he’ll be back.
This is because Tony Stark is still in Scotland, overseeing the recovery of his pilot and best friend Jim Rhodes, who had been poisoned during one of Iron Man’s recent battles.[1] Paying to have top-of-the-line medical equipment brought in, Tony decides to spend his time waiting with his new girlfriend, Indries Moomji. However, when they stop at a nearby pub and Tony is pressured into ordering an alcoholic beverage he quickly loses his temper and storms out.[2]
Deciding to go someplace else while they wait for Jim to recover, Tony decides to fly them back to the States, but is refused when it’s discovered that his pilot’s license was allowed to expired. Annoyed, Tony arranges for a commercial flight home which is marred with delays, mix-ups, and technical problems adding even more stress on Tony. On the flight back, a stewardess accidentally trips and spills two martini’s on Tony, making him reek of gin the entire flight back. In hindsight, he will look at this moment as the beginning of his greatest defeat.
Elsewhere, the King of the Chessmen is still at large, pleased that Tony Stark believes that he has defeated the man who has secretly been attacking him as this gives him an opportunity to continue his plot.
By this time, Tony Stark has returned to Stark International, where he discovers that the Melter is still coming around looking for him. With his current suit of Iron Man armor severely damaged after his last battle, Tony is forced to put on an older model to face his old foe.[3] Luckily, the Melter had adjusting his melting ray to work on the newer Iron Man armor, rending the weapon useless against the Avenger. Although the Melter is quickly defeated, the head office suffers severe structural damage that will need immediate and costly repairs. With his company now hemorrhaging money, Tony realizes that he doesn’t have the money needed to repair his current suit of Iron Man armor.
While trying to figure out his options, Tony gets a call from Vic Martinelli, his head of security. Vic has been able to determine who has been responsible for the attacks on the company. It turns out to be a rival businessman named Obadiah Stane, who operates a munitions company out in Utah. Deciding to confront Stane directly, Tony has Vic send all the information get gathered to a chartered flight to Utah. On the flight over, Tony learns that Stane made his fortune at 25 and became a world chess champion while still a teenager.[4]
When Tony arrives in Utah he discovers that the rental company is out of cars and there is a tornado coming that has shut everything down. This does little to detour Stark, who goes into the airport bathroom to change into Iron Man and fly the rest of the way to Stane International on his own. Little does he know that Stane is anticipating his arrival and has prepared a number of automated tanks as a welcome for the Avenger. Iron Man is ready for an attack and uses the various defensive and offensive capabilities of his armor to get through them.[5] Smashing his way into Stane’s headquarters, Iron Man finally comes face-to-face with the man who has been trying to destroy his company.
Stane explains that since Tony Stark refuses to become part of his consortium, Obadiah has decided that he must be destroyed and will do anything and everything to accomplish this goal. He then gloats that Iron Man can’t do anything about it because he has been careful not to leave any evidence of his crime. Realizing that Stane is correct, Iron Man leaves but vows that he’ll be back.
When Tony Stark returns to his company, he gets another brief from Vic Martinelli who tells him that Jim Rhodes has vanished from his hospital bed. This just added stress on all of his problems and Tony decides to head back to his room. Exhausted after all of his ordeals, Tony finds himself craving a drink and figures he can overcome the urge to do so if he can get a good nights rest. However, when he enters his bedroom, Tony is dishearten to see a bottle of Scotch and a drinking glass have been laid out in his bedroom for him.[6]
Recurring Characters
Iron Man, Melter, Jim Rhodes, Bambi Arbogast, Vic Martinelli, Obadiah Stane, Indries Moomji
Continuity Notes
Iron Man had been investigating an attack on Stark International since issue #162, bringing him to Scotland in issue #164-165. Jim was poisoned last issue.
Tony is a recovering alcoholic since Iron Man #128. He’s remained on the wagon this whole time but will stumble off it spectacularly by the end of next issue.
Tony states that this is armor that he first built five years ago. It is generally accepted that this is the model 3 Iron Man armor first built in Tales of Suspense #66. When comparing Tony’s assessment of time to the Sliding Timescale, this narrative actually fits and his assessment of the passage of time should be considered factual.
Here, it is stated that Stane made his fortune a year earlier than Tony did at 26 years old. This doesn’t really make much sense as (per International Iron Man #7) Tony was 23 at the start of the Modern Age. See below for a more comprehensive explanation.
Iron Man uses his jet skates here and a footnote reminds readers he last used them in Iron Man #140. He makes a quip about selling them to Dazzler. At the time of this story, Dazzler wore roller skates as part of her on stage persona dating back to X-Men #130. Roller skates continue to be part of her regular accoutrement until Dazzler #38.
This bottle of Scotch was likely left behind by Indria Moomji who has been secretly working for Stane to destroy Stark emotionally and drive him back into drinking. See Iron Man #173.
Topical References
As stated above, Tony states that the suit of armor that he is wearing to fight the Melter was built five years ago. When measured up against the Sliding Timescale this fits with the creation of the Model 3 Iron Man armor, making the statement factual.
On the other hand, when Iron Man remarks that it has been “years” since he last used his transistor-powered jet-skates. As the footnote reminds readers, the last time they were used was in Iron Man #140. In this case, it appears as though — in this instance — the writer is measuring time between publication dates as issue #140 was published 3 years prior to this story. When measuring with the Sliding Timescale it would have been months and not years between the two stories.
These two contradictory measurements is an example one of the different ways in which the Sliding Timescale is interpreted. In this case, the writer appears to be interpreting things based on the “compressed time” model in which the relative four years of publications surrounding a story are measured in real time, while stories outside of that four year timespan are considered to be condensed into the Sliding Timescales 4:1 ratio. It’s not a very good method because it unintentionally squishes stories 4+ years and older into a smaller window of time making measuring time messier to plot out than the automatically condensing to a 4:1 ratio.
In this story, Tony tells Vic to arrange for a chartered 747 to take him to Utah. This should be considered topical as they stopped building Boeing 747’s in 2021 and the fleet will eventually be retired.
In this story, it is stated the Obadiah Stane made his first million at 25 years old. This was a lot of money in 1983 when this story was published, but not quite as impressive now. Adjusting for inflation this would be closer to 2.8 million in 2022 money.
This story features rotary payphones and CRT television screens. Both obsolete technologies that should be considered topical.
Tony’s Age, Success, and Fortune
This story presents the idea that Tony earned his fortune at the age of 25. This doesn’t really add up if taken literally by taking a look at other texts. The first issue is with Tony’s age in question. Per International Iron Man #7, published in 2016, Tony was born 38 years prior. Per the Sliding Timescale, that story is part of “Year Sixteen” of the Sliding Timescale. This would have made Tony Stark about 23 years old when he first appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 and around 28 at the time of Iron Man #166. By this measurement, Tony would have earned his fortune around two years into the Modern Age.
It seems to me like this statement was written as though Tony was a self made man. Which is not the case as other stories will point out. Tony intertied his wealth when his parents died, as explained in Iron Man #288.
In terms of making money for himself, Iron Man (vol. 4) #1 shows Tony creating a seed-bomb weapon that he sells to the military by age 19. He was creating and selling innovations before he was 25.
That said, as Iron Man: The Iron Age #1-2 shows, when Tony took over the company he didn’t take running it seriously until after the injury that turned him into Iron Man.
With all of this in mind, one could assume that Tony is measuring his success based on when he started taking business seriously rather than his overall wealth earned or inherited before hand and it took until his 26th birthday to reach that level of success independently.
